Upon which Mrs. Lyndsay, despite years of acquaintance with her sister-in-law, pricked her finger and dropped her thimble, and took to her fan.
“You see, there is no commandment against it, Margaret.”
“But, Anne, ‘Thou shalt not hear false witness,’” said Mrs. Lyndsay.
“But suppose I tell a harmless fib about myself, or praise some one I should like to—to slap?”
“It’s all false witness, I reckon,” said Dorothy. “If I ain’t my own neighbor, I’d like to know who is?”
Anne smiled. That this fly was not easily meshed in her sophistical web only excited the spider.
“It would be a horrid addition to one’s responsibilities to be one’s own neighbor. I should move away. After all, Margaret, isn’t the chief use of habitual truthfulness to enable one at need to lie with useful probability of being believed?”
By this time Mrs. Lyndsay was nearly past the possibility of remonstrance. She let fall the work she had resumed, and, rocking steadily, began to fan herself with deliberate slowness. A little she suspected this baited snare; but not to seize it was beyond her power of self-control.
“I am thankful my boys are not here. You will say it is a jest. Whether it is a jest or not, it is equally the kind of thing which should not be said—ever,” and here she shut the fan with decision, as if that also closed the argument.
“I was thinking I’m rather on Miss Anne’s side,” said Dorothy. “There’s a heap of righteousness in some lies. Now, if I hadn’t been a dreadful truth-speaking woman a good many years, my Hiram wouldn’t believe me now; and the fact is I just stuff that man full of lies nowadays. I just chuck them around like you feed chickens. I tell him he looks better every day, and how he is getting stronger. Miss Anne, I shouldn’t wonder a bit if the Lord loved a right cheerful liar.”